Of wikis and emails
Wikis are great for creating ad-hoc collaborative and infinitely extensible stores of information and knowledge. Especially when such information is so easily transmitted AND so easily lost in email black holes as pointed out by Robert Rath on his post Wikis Bring Light To The Black Hole of EMail.
Emails are easy to use and conceptually comfortable. I simply type and send. Unfortunately they are also notoriously unorganisable. Even the basic attempt to write succinct subject lines elude many, let alone the ideal of sticking to one subject per email. And I include myself in this.
Enter wikis. As Robert is advocating, if I believe the information I am writing up in an email is potentially useful to more than the recipient, I should be sticking it in a wiki. This is especially true in a team environment where there are huge amounts of hidden knowledge that ought to be shared more overtly and officially.
Interestingly, more often than not, I have noticed a curious resistance to wikis. This seems more prevalent amongst managers and those who are more “control” oriented. These people are fine with traditional databases on one extreme (ie highly structured data), and emails on the other (supremely unstructured). But they seem to have difficulty coping with the in-between that is a wiki. They um and ah and try and find some reason as to explain why they believe a wiki is utterly unsuitable. There seem to be some genuine inability to grasp or be comfortable with the concept of a wiki. And I am not talking about older managers who don’t get it – I have seen this in people younger than me!
Has anyone encountered this when trying to suggest the use of a wiki?
Is this simply another example of “change is hard”?
Or does the idea of a wiki strike at some deep-seated fear in some people?
I wonder how much of the anti-Wikipedia movement is driven by this “fear” of wikis as a concept?
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Hi Zern, I have implemented a wiki at a large IT dept for an insurance company based in Sydney. In my experience wikis need a lot of repeatable PR – there is definately mixed reactions. I have found that some groups e.g. the more tech savvy and up-to-date take to wikis like a duck to water. I have found that other groups need some coercing and cajoling to get them to use the wiki at all. Also, you have to be careful when implementing a wiki. You can’t just throw it in, and hope that it will start working. The strength of wikis is all so its problem. The flexibility of the wiki can mean that information can start becoming disorganised and duplicated. This is why the role of a wiki gardener it is especially important. There needs to be a certain amount of organisation and structure around a wiki without causing the wiki to be too controlled. I recommend having a look at a website called wiki patterns (www.wikipatterns.com). There is also a book called wiki patterns which is a very useful resource in helping the wiki to become adopted by an organisation. I think that education is the key – once people can get their head around doing things a different way they adjust to it…but, as always, it is hard to break habits e.g. like the use of e-mail.
Thanks for the great insider tips Craig!
Hi Zern,
having had a long history of being involved in ISO9000 accredited design and manufacturing I come from a history of CONTROL. Controlling documentation is crucial to managing quality but it is also a big innovation show stopper!
I must admit, I initially struggled with the wiki. I wanted to pre-populate a wiki with structure and seed content to keep it under CONTROL and because I knew best. Maybe this is right for some wikis. I all depends on what the wiki is for.
Most important, get clear and make public what your wiki is for. Is it for sharing tacit knowledge? Is if for sharing common workplace procedures? Is it a place for sharing ideas? Is it a place for documenting the ins and outs of your products or services?
The only thing I believe should be set in stone is that a wiki is a shared place with shared responsibility. Sure it needs to be tended, promoted and allowed to evolve but leave the control to other document management systems.
Letting your wiki grow with a minimum of control, a little bit of direction and a great sense of community will almost certainly lead a more innovative and productive outcome.
… Robert
Thanks for sharing your insights Robert.
I can definitely remember wanting to prepopulate a wiki with structure. LOL.
Like all systems, tending/gardening is required to keep things in some semblance of usable order. A totally freeform system is arguably not a system. (Indeed I wonder if it is possible to have a totally freeform “system” given users will soon start to impose their own order on it, even if this was done subconsciously…)
More control leads to less innovation is very true. Then again, totally chaos can only be useful for so long. It is all about balance and working in the gray areas. Not control OR chaos, but rather a set of context-sensitive ratios of each.